Although I have read many stories about ice houses – not houses made from ice, but little buildings used to store winter ice for use in the grand houses in whose grounds they were constructed, it was only when we visited Killerton in Devon a couple of years ago that I first saw an actual one.

it certainly made an impact on me because in one of my Radwinter books, the main character gets trapped when he falls into one, and he really thinks he is going to die there as its remote and so well insulated his shouts for help can’t be heard, even if there was anyone about.

At Easter, holidaying in Kent, we went to visit Scotney Castle which was built in the late 1300’s but not properly finished until two hundred years later. Three hundred years later, in accordance with the fashion of the time, the architect Anthony Salvin, designed an ice house for the estate and it was built in 1841. What an amazing structure it was; all the materials were either from the estate of locally sourced. The brick lining of the chamber was made from bricks produced in the nearby village of Kilndown, the timber for the frame from the woodlands, and the heather for the insulated thatched roof from the grounds of the estate. During 2012 restoration, once again local materials were used and even the finial on top was made from local oak.

During the winter, ice was collected from the moat and stored in the ice house; it was so perfectly designed and constructed that it could last for a year without melting. Any melt-water didn’t just sit in a slushy puddle at the bottom, but drained out and back into the moat.

Scotney Castle

. If you would like to read my book which features the ice house adventure, it’s called Magick and here is a link: